by Ruth Rendell
'Mike, I just don't know. The whole thing doesn't add up. But I've been busy with a map of Essex before we came down here. Melstead where the Mercedes was found, is about seven miles from Stinted airport. That's why I thought about the clothes and the passport. He could have got out of the country before anyone started looking for him. Of course that doesn't answer why he left the car where he did. It was bound to be found so why not leave it in the long-stay car park at Stinted?'
'Come to that,' said Burden, 'why go to Stinted at all when Gatwick is on our doorstep?'
'I know. I thought of that. I phoned Mavis Targo and told her about finding the Mercedes. She just said, "Abroad?" in the sort of tone a woman might use if I'd suggested her husband had gone to Mars. Then she repeated that stuff about him hating abroad. He's only once been out of this country and that was to Spain on their honeymoon.
'I said he'd renewed his passport just the same. That was because they were going to New York, she said. Her daughter was getting married in New York and she wanted to go to the wedding. I didn't know she had a daughter. She's not Targo's of course. Targo was apparently going too but when it came to the crunch he couldn't face flying and he's seasick on boats. When I said it was still possible he'd left the country all she said was she was left to feed the bloody animals. Every time she goes in the cage to feed the lion she's so frightened her hands shake and she can hardly hold his steak dinner.'
Burden laughed. 'I don't hold with keeping wild animals – dangerous animals – as pets. Why does he do it?'
'I suppose he has an affinity with them. He's a dangerous animal himself. He's a monster.'
'What d'you think made him leave the country – if he has?'
'While the car was parked outside the Rahmans' and while he was walking about Kingsmarkham, shopping or seeing someone or, for all I know, revisiting the scenes of his past crimes, he spoke to someone or saw or read something and realised he was in danger. I don't know what that something was but it's the only thing that accounts for his not going home as he planned. Instead he had to get away fast.' 'Yes but, Reg, he didn't get out fast even then. This discovery of his – I mean that he would be a suspect – was probably made during the afternoon, at latest by about six when it's dark and the only people about are in the pubs. But we know he didn't leave Glebe Road until after eight fifteen. When he did leave he drove, not to the nearest airport, but up to north Essex, a long way, taking in the Dart ford Crossing and endless miles of motorway. That's not getting out fast.'
'No, you're right. And what we haven't considered is how did he get from where he parked the car to Stinted, if he did. Walked? In the middle of the night? If it's anything like most of these country places – think of the villages round here – he'd be walking along narrow totally unlit lanes, sometimes no houses for miles and if there were any they'd be in darkness at that hour. Did he know the way? Had he ever been there before? I asked Mavis that and she said not that she knew of. She did know he'd never been anywhere from Stinted airport.'
'The prints on the Mercedes – I take it they're his?'
'His and Mavis's. Whatever she says, Mike, he's left the country now and he's not planning on coming back. There's only one thing that really worries me about that theory. Would he leave all those animals? Would he leave his dogs? Oh, he could rely on her to look after them but surely only for a while. The dogs permanently maybe but the llamas? The lion? That's the part I don't understand. I have to see this place where the car was parked. I'm going up to Melstead tomorrow.'
The route from the Dartford Crossing along the M25 and the M11 was almost uniformly ugly and spoilt. But beyond the hoardings and the proliferation of road signs, behind the flower stalls, the prefab cafes and the golf courses, meadows and untouched woodland could be distantly seen, with here and there a church spire or an ancient half-timbered house. The scenery improved once Donaldson took the turning for Braintree, and Wexford, who had heard, along with most Sussex people, that Essex was generally a flat eyesore, was surprised. He had only previously been to Colchester and hadn't expected gently hilly country, willow-bordered streams and pretty villages boasting more thatched cottages than in his own county.
Melstead was such a place. It was approached – and apparently exclusively approached – along a network of narrow lanes without pavements. At one point Donaldson was forced on to the verge and halfway into the hedge when a woman sped past them without any relaxation of speed. Wexford considered doing something about it, then told himself he wasn't a traffic cop and had better things to occupy his time with.
The street where Targo's Mercedes had been found ran from the heart of the village, where there was a green with a war memorial, the church and the vicarage, up to a pub called the Prince of Wales Feathers and a small council estate. Donaldson parked the car and Wexford and Lynn Fancourt walked up to the middle point of the street. Here were the only two shops remaining in the village, a butcher's which had about it that indefinable atmosphere of pride and conceit that proclaims its reputation as 'the best butcher in Essex' and a general store and post office.
Recently converted to vegetarianism, Lynn shuddered theatrically at Mr Parkinson's display of locally shot pheasants and turned her face away to follow Wexford into the general store. Another surprise was in store for him. Out here, in this rustic and intensely English spot, the proprietor and postmaster was Asian. And a particularly dark-skinned hooknose Asian at that. Wexford wondered if it was politically incorrect even to think these things. He showed Anil Manor his warrant card and introduced Lynn.
'Sussex, eh? I have cousins in Sussex. Maybe you know them?'
This reminded Wexford of the sort of people who when you tell them you're going to Sydney, say that maybe you'll see their brother who emigrated to Perth ten years before. He ignored the remark and asked about the car.
Mr Manor said he hadn't noticed it until a customer told him it had been there four days and asked him what he thought should be done about it. Minding one's own business seemed to be a watchword of the postmaster's.
'I said it was nothing to do with us. There are no parking restrictions in this street. Anyone could leave a car here if he wished, plenty of room for us remains.'
'Do you live over the shop, Mr Manor?' Wexford asked.
A note of pride came into Manor's voice. 'No. I have a home in Taxed. I drive here each day, it isn't far.'
'You didn't see the man who parked the Mercedes here?'
'As I say, I go home to Taxed each evening sharp at five. Indeed, you might call that afternoon rather than evening, but that is when I drive to my home.'
'If someone wanted to get to Stinted airport from here and had no car, what would he or she do?'
'He could walk.' This was such an alien notion to Mr Manor that he burst out laughing as if he had been exceptionally witty. 'If he was mad or stricken by poverty, yes, he could walk. It is seven miles. Better to get a taxi. You will find the taxi man's home opposite the pub. It says Tip-Top Taxis on the gate which is rather a silly name, in my opinion.'
Today Mr Manor's side of the street was parked with cars almost nose to tail, there being just two gaps large enough for someone to squeeze a vehicle in. If there had been even a single car or van on the other side the space left between would have been wide enough for no more than a bicycle.
'What happens when something comes the other way, Lynn?'
'That happens, sir,' she said, pointing.
The van which had just about passed the halfway mark in the street moved relentlessly on while the Fiat coming towards it was forced to reverse, a maneuver which was a challenge to the old man at the wheel who was several times in danger of scraping the bodywork of a Rolls-Royce, a VOW and a Transit van. They watched with interest but desisted from applause when the older driver succeeded in escaping with no damage to his own car or the others. They walked up the path to Tip-Top Taxis.
Wexford was almost certain the taxi driver was going to tell him he had received a phone ca
ll from someone requesting to be driven to Stinted airport or even to a station on the London to Cambridge mainline at midnight on the relevant date. But the owner of Tip-Top Taxis disappointed him. Mr Davis kept his books efficiently. No such call and no such appointment were recorded.
'I'd have remembered anyway.'
'Why is that, Mr Davis?'
'Because I'm sixty-five years old and I reckon I'm past driving some lazy sod to Stinted at that hour when there's no flights before six in the morning.'
'It could have been in the morning,' said Lynn, thinking of Targo sleeping in his car. 'Have you any bookings to the airport or a train the next morning?'
'Not a sausage, Miss. I do a regular run Wednesday mornings without fail. Take a lady to see her mum in an old folks' place in New market, wait for her and bring her back. That satisfy you?'
So Targo had parked his car and vanished. He was strong and fit and resourceful. He could have walked. 'Along those lanes, sir?' Lynn asked as they walked back to the car. 'In the dark? You noticed how fast the locals drive. He'd have been lucky not to be killed. Do you remember that woman that passed us on the way here?'
'I do. A pedestrian would get short shrift from someone like her.'
Hannah was put on to someone called a personnel coordinator at the Spice well supermarket headquarters. This was far from London and even further from Kingsmarkham on an industrial estate outside Peterborough.
'Kingsmarkham Crime Management. This is Detective Sergeant Goldsmith. Can you tell me if you're employing a Tamima Rahman at any of your branches? R-A-H-MA-N.'
'I'll check.'
In the days when such information was kept in files she would have had to call Hannah back. As it was she didn't even have to ask her to hold the line. She knew within thirty seconds. 'No, we don't employ anyone of that name.'
Hannah was always thorough. 'Would you check again, please?'
The second check afforded no different data. Hannah's next call was to Mrs Asia. Her tone was waspish. 'Don't ask me. I haven't seen Tamima since she left here. I've told you. She's living with Jacqueline and Clare in Wands worth.'
As soon as the words were out Fatima Asia realised she had inadvertently let out Tamima's place of residence. Using a wheedling tone usually foreign to her, Hannah asked if Mrs Asia could, please, be more specific.
Tamima's aunt hesitated – or had she put the receiver down?
'Are you there, Mrs Asia?'
'Oh, well, I suppose it won't do any harm. Manchuria Road, Wands worth, SW18. It's number 46.'
'Thank you very much.'
While she had been checking on supermarkets, Damon Coleman had also been round the shops. When Wexford was young, engaged to Alison, Kingsmarkham's men had only one shop in which to buy their clothes, an old-fashioned (even then) outfitters in the centre of the high street. This was Prior's, where women also bought skirts and suits and their children's school uniform. Now there were six, one of them in the run-down Kingsbrook Centre, one (very trendy) in York Street, the rest in the high street where Prior's still held a pre-eminent place but under its new name, minus the apostrophe, of Priors Prime of Life. Damon went there first and met with no success. The smart place in York Street was no help and nor was Young Adult three shops along from Priors. The last shop he visited was called Heyday, its window full of jeans, sweaters, baseball caps, heavy metal-studded belts and Wild West ten-gallon hats.
No, Mr Targo hadn't bought anything there on the afternoon in question but they knew him. He wasn't what you'd call a regular customer but he had bought a couple of pairs of jeans there, one pair two or three weeks before.
'You're a snappy dresser, Damon,' Wexford said. 'Is that expression still used?'
'Not so far as I know, sir.'
'You'd know. Let's say you care how you look. Would you leave the country with only the clothes you stood up in?'
'No, I wouldn't. But then I wouldn't be fleeing from justice, would I?'
'Fleeing' was hardly the word. Shilly-shallying, loitering, hanging about, would be more appropriate. Targo hadn't even been shopping. Surely if you embarked on a flight without a suitcase full of clothes, Wexford thought, you would only do so because you'd find clothes at your destination. Not necessarily in the shops of some foreign city but because you kept them there in a friend's home. He phoned Mavis Targo.
'My daughter? Lois? He wouldn't go to her. The only time they met they didn't get on. It was here and she's allergic to dogs. She only stayed one night but I had to lock the dogs up and you can imagine the sort of fuss Eric made.'
'Just the same, I'd like her phone number, please.'
'What time is it? 2 p.m.? Well, it's only seven where she lives. I'll give you the number but you'll have to wait till a more civilized hour.'
Wexford didn't bother with civilized hours but called Mrs Lois Leggett in Colorado Springs five minutes later. Her 'I wouldn't have him in the house' had a familiar ring. He remembered that Adele Thompson had said she wouldn't be in the same room with Targo and Mrs Rahman wouldn't allow his dog to cross the threshold.
People had been telling him over the years that a good way to think clearly was to go for a walk. If you sat down in a chair and tried to think the chances were you'd go to sleep. First put the monster in the box, he thought. Throw the box away – but he couldn't do that, it was the monster he had to think about. He had always considered walking as therapeutic in that if you did enough of it it would use up some of the calories you put in by means of red wine, cashew nuts, Chinese food, fruit pies and snacks. Might it also be beneficial in a psychological way? That is, affect the mind so that it concentrated on the problem in hand?
Beautiful the botanical gardens were no longer. Or perhaps it was only the time of year, the untidiest time when lawns are brown with scattered leaves and a few dying roses linger on straggly bushes. The tropical house had become a coffee bar, the pomatum had been vandalized by those such as the Molloy gang and the rare trees enclosure turned into a (seldom used) children's playground with swings and see-saws. The grass was too wet to walk on so he kept first to the main drive, then turned off along a path between lawns shaded by great cedars and beeches shedding copper-coloured leaves.
A woman was coming towards him and because he was always aware of women's fear when encountering a lone man in a lonely place, he took a few steps off the path on to the wet turf. He smelt her scent, then heard her say, 'Keep off the grass, Reg. Do you remember saying that to me before these gardens were here?'
He had no idea who she was, a tall thin woman, very upright, white hair piled on her head in a chignon. Unrecognizable – yet she had recognised him.
'Why did I say that?'
'Most of those words weren't needed, you said. Cut out "keep" first and you get "off the grass", then "the" which isn't necessary, finally "grass" because what else? You've just got "off" left and that says it all. I've never forgotten it. You don't know who I am, do you?'
He did now. 'Yes, Alison, of course I do. How are you? Tell me you don't live here and I couldn't have seen you all these years.'
She laughed. 'I live in France. I lost my first husband and married a Frenchman. I'm here because my mother died. She was immensely old but it's still awful, it's still a shock.'
'Let's walk,' he said.
They went back the way he had come. So much for thinking and concentrating on his problem. He was telling her about his life, his children, his grandchildren, when she took his arm and, looking down at her right hand resting on his sleeve, he saw the ring she wore on her third finger. It was the engagement ring he had given her when he was twenty-one and she had kept when he offered it. He looked at it and she saw him look but neither of them said anything.
At the gates she said, 'I'm staying at the Olive. Where else? Back to France tomorrow on the Euro star.'
'Goodbye, my dear,' he said and he took her in his arms and kissed her. She walked away, waving once.
Back to the police station and back to earth. DS G
oldsmith, he was told, had gone to London in pursuit of Tamima Rahman but was expected back shortly. He felt vaguely annoyed. He had told her to have one more go at finding Tamima's whereabouts. Perhaps it was that word 'shortly' which irritated him. What was wrong with 'soon'? He was trying to do the thinking which the fortuitous meeting with Alison had put an end to, when Burden walked in frowning, the corners of his mouth turned down. He seldom swore but he did now.
'That bloody lion's escaped.'
'What?'
'King or whatever it's called, it's escaped. Mavis Targo's been on. She went to feed it and it got out.'
'For God's sake, Mike. When did this happen?'
'Early this morning. She was scared to tell us, thought it might come back of its own accord. She phoned the RESACA first and then something called the Feline Foundation, then us. We were a poor third. The media haven't got it yet but they will without help from us. I've been on to Myringham Zoo and they've got someone coming over, their Big Cats expert apparently.'
'How did it get out?'
'Well, normally, she says, she wouldn't go into its enclosure. Targo does and apparently he strokes the thing. She throws half a side of lamb or whatever over the wire – he hangs it on that hook thing – only she missed and it caught on the top. She unlocked the gate, went in and tried to reach it but failed. The lion was in its cave. She fetched a pair of steps to climb up, forgetting that the gate was unlocked. When she came back the gate was open and she saw the lion out in the meadow where the manta deer are. She was so frightened she ran back to the house, locked herself in and drank some brandy. I don't know what she hoped for, some miracle, some waking up from a nightmare maybe, but it wasn't till half an hour ago that she phoned us.'
Wexford's phone was ringing. He picked it up.
'Kingsmarkham Courier here. Lionel Smith speaking. What can you tell us about this escaped lion?'
Chapter 18
